Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­clared that Trinidad and To­ba­go will not ex­it Cari­com, even as she launched an­oth­er scathing at­tack on the re­gion­al body over what she de­scribed as a fail­ure to cor­rob­o­rate a key What­sApp mes­sage cen­tral to an on­go­ing gov­er­nance dis­pute.

Giv­en re­cent ten­sions, the con­ver­sa­tion about T&T’s pos­si­ble ex­it has re-emerged; how­ev­er, in a post to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter un­der­scored the coun­try will not ex­it the re­gion­al bloc, stress­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go “helped build this or­gan­i­sa­tion and will be a part of fix­ing it to ben­e­fit all the peo­ple of Cari­com.”

The Prime Min­is­ter, how­ev­er, ex­pressed deep frus­tra­tion that no mem­ber of Cari­com’s lead­er­ship has pub­licly con­firmed the ex­is­tence of a What­sApp mes­sage she claims sup­ports For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers in the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.

“Yet to date, not a sin­gle mem­ber of the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at or Cari­com For­eign Min­is­ter who is a par­tic­i­pant of that What­sApp group show the de­cen­cy, hon­esty or courage to ac­knowl­edge that Min­is­ter Sobers is be­ing truth­ful,” she said.

“In­stead, they have all con­tributed to the dis­hon­esty and ma­lign­ment by their de­lib­er­ate and dis­grace­ful si­lence.”

The Prime Min­is­ter at­tached a screen­shot of a What­sApp group chat for COF­COR (Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions) show­ing in­ter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween Caribbean for­eign min­is­ters and se­nior Cari­com of­fi­cials.

A mes­sage pur­port­ing to be from Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett on the day of the re­treat says, “Good morn­ing for­eign min­is­ters, chair­man PM Drew has in­di­cat­ed that to­day will be a Heads-on­ly re­treat. Notwith­stand­ing any in­di­ca­tion oth­er­wise, he would like it to re­main Heads on­ly. He apol­o­gis­es for any in­con­ve­nience. Min­is­ters should there­fore re­main for the Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Meet­ing to com­plete its work, in­clud­ing those agen­da items from the Heads’ agen­da which Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil is to con­sid­er and pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions to Heads for adop­tion.”

Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed on this mes­sage last week af­ter ob­tain­ing it from a source.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the con­tin­ued re­fusal by re­gion­al of­fi­cials to ac­knowl­edge the com­mu­ni­ca­tion rais­es se­ri­ous con­cerns about com­pe­tence and trans­paren­cy with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“The lead­er­ship at Cari­com, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the Sec­re­tari­at, is dys­func­tion­al, dis­hon­est and in­com­pe­tent,” the Prime Min­is­ter said, adding that the sit­u­a­tion re­flects a broad­er break­down in gov­er­nance.

She went fur­ther, ac­cus­ing the re­gion­al body of op­er­at­ing as a “cor­rupt back­room op­er­a­tion” that un­der­mines its stat­ed ideals.

“Cari­com’s ideals to­wards in­te­gra­tion, in­tegri­ty and in­clu­sion are just a smoke screen mask­ing a back­room op­er­a­tion.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so crit­i­cised what she de­scribed as a cul­ture of po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion, claim­ing that key po­si­tions are filled by “friends, par­ty hacks, rel­a­tives of politi­cians and af­fil­i­ates of re­gion­al sis­ter par­ties” rather than qual­i­fied tech­nocrats.

De­spite her crit­i­cisms, Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­der­scored the im­por­tance of Cari­com to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fu­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ar­eas such as eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, se­cu­ri­ty and re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

“The eco­nom­ic, se­cu­ri­ty, in­te­gra­tion and de­vel­op­ment fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go will not be com­pro­mised be­cause of back­room machi­na­tions with­in Cari­com,” she said.

“This is not a game; the fu­ture of my cit­i­zens’ lives and liveli­hoods are di­rect­ly con­nect­ed to Cari­com.”

She al­so sig­nalled that her ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tends to es­ca­late the mat­ter pub­licly un­til there is ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“There­fore, this mat­ter will con­tin­ue to be ruth­less­ly and re­lent­less­ly, pub­licly es­ca­lat­ed and pros­e­cut­ed un­til per­sons are held ac­count­able for their odi­ous ac­tions and prop­er re­forms are made,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter added that she is still await­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion re­quest­ed from Cari­com’s lead­er­ship, in­clud­ing records such as meet­ing min­utes and per­for­mance ap­praisals re­lat­ed to the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al’s reap­point­ment.

Re­it­er­at­ing a po­si­tion she first out­lined in De­cem­ber 2025, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­gion­al body must con­front its in­ter­nal chal­lenges.

“The Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty must face the rot with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion with trans­paren­cy and hon­esty,” she said. “Hid­ing be­hind the glib­ness of diplo­ma­cy, fake so­phis­ti­ca­tion, and false nar­ra­tives is self-de­feat­ing.”